Hello to all!!
I’m trying to make a low whistle.
I’m making it out of 3/4" copper pipe, without plans.
The body of the whistle is ok, A flat, I know a real great key!
It will be tuneable, I will make interchangeable bodies for different keys.
I’m having trouble with the mouth piece.
I’ve made 4 different mouth pieces trying to get it right.
On my latest mouth piece the low notes are ok.
But I am having trouble with the high notes & the whistle is too breathy.
Any suggestions or insites would be of great help!
Thanks!!
Treasach,
There are so many possible causes of the problems you describe that it is impossible for me to help without more information. Effectively you need to jiggle about some of the dimensions seeing what effect it has - the trouble is they all also have an effect on each other. The first thing to do is compare yours to other whistles. I might be able to help with the high notes if you can describe what is wrong with them. As far as breathiness goes is usually more difficult.
I might be able to help with the high notes if you can describe what is wrong with them. As far as breathiness goes is usually more difficult.[/quote]
Thanks whistul for the help.
The upper notes are real weak.
Top two notes will not sound at all.
Okay, you are doing it without plans, but at least take a look at some plans to see if what you are doing is close to what some other folks do. Here are a couple of methods:
http://www3.telus.net/ereiswig/whismake.htm
http://www.ehhs.cmich.edu/~dhavlena/low-d.htm
The second one has some notes about what to do to correct for various sound problems.
By the way, if you are into making various folk instruments, I highly recommend getting Dennis Havlena’s CD version of his website. Well worth the $8 he asks. I already have started a couple of fun instruments from there that I wouldn’t have if not for the sound clips and pictures.
-Patrick
Linux users, command this:
wget -m http://www.ehhs.cmich.edu/~dhavlena/
You have his site mirrored on your hard drive when it completes.
…Ah,but the CD version apparently contains gobs of close-up photos and sound samples that aren’t on his website due to space restrictions.
If the low notes are OK and the high notes don’t play up to the top of the second register, that suggests your voicing window is too long. Longer voicing window favors the lower register; shorter voicing window favors the upper register. You’re looking for the sweet spot, the length where both registers are good. It’s a good idea to work with a pair of vernier or dial calipers and keep notes of what dimensions produced what results, down to a few thousandths of an inch.
Breathiness usually comes from too much air that isn’t producing music. The biggest source of breathiness is usually too much space under the soundblade relative to the windway floor. On most whistles, the most focused voicing is with the soundblade just slightly above the level of the windway floor. Once the soundblade position relative to the windway floor has been optimized, there’s sometimes still some breathiness resulting from too much air blowing over the top of the soundblade without making music. That can be corrected by lowering the windway ceiling some (or raising both the windway floor and soundblade), creating a windway that’s narrower from floor to ceiling with an airstream that’s more directly focused on the soundblade.
Best wishes,
Jerry